Monday, March 21, 2016

This isn't how i wanted to feel {poem}

I didn't want to feel like if you left I would ache--
and then aching, I didn't want to remember loving you.

But I did. So much so.
Memories of loving so intense
they course electrically up my spine,
lingering at the back of my neck
where your fingers used to rest.

Or are they at my hips?
I still feel them there,
can feel my own fingers trace towards your wrist
to catch yours, and together, it seemed,
pull me in.

I hear your words
as if you are next to me still,
whispering truths and wondering at feels.
I do not want to feel--
still exhaustingly vulnerable--
how I do when I realize you are not:
alone, missing.

Shame, fear--
those were not mine to feel.
Torn into
left to wonder at every answer,
every exquisite detail
revealed for love…

I feel everything,
when I want to feel nothing.

Not attached, not wanting.
Not make-believing
that the sweetest of memories
mean anything about the future,
I want only my present

where I feel joy, gratitude.
Where the breath of your memory
dances with my spirit
for how alive I am for having let you love me
and feeling,
with no need for return
(but oh, hope)
that, even now
I still love you.